Being Saleh: From Astral To Umbral a.k.a it's getting easier

Since my initial plan to upgrade to Warlords of Draenor is blown to bits by several... circumstances (like my social life and Guild Wars 2) I finally have time to get back to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, It's not without several planning though, for one: FFXIV has been the most improved MMORPG I've ever played, and since I'm a filthy casual what I meant by "most improved" is "it's getting easier"

Except those pants, which made me hate ninjas

Since it's initial release on September 30th 2010, Final Fantasy has transformed from a total wreck into one of the most polished MMORPG ever created, at least that was all the review you can get from numerous website, I don't really care about it all, I played since A realm reborn beta (pre patch 2.0) and I can tell you from my own experience FFXIV has been most approachable, even than WOW, since I don't really raid and have a real piece of work internet connection from patch 2.0 to patch 2.5 FFXIV has been a great journey in term of casual gameplaying and story

The Story so far.... 

Final Fantasy XIV has numerous story quests, which it's names (like the F.A.T.Es) are homage to almost everything in pop culture, names like "Sudul Eht Nioj" or "Life is a Syrcus" almost get me chuckled every time, the writing (and translation, hello, it's a japanese game) work to this day was incredibly tidy and astonishing, if you're not into reading quests text like me you might skip them into oblivion, but really, slow down and read them all even when there are no voice acting (with sometimes regretfully awful, minor, nvm) I came across a line of dialogue which can or can't be tailored to my selection of race, it could be my imagination and since I'm too stupid to take a screenshot I just continue in hope to find another one, alas I never did.... maybe I'll ask around sometimes.

Please enjoy this Minfillia screenshot to ease your pain

So, in every patch (from 2.0 to the latest 2.5) there are at least five story arc in FFXIV, one is the main story arc where you as the good hero of Eorzea faced and confront threats from every not-so-good fellas, (minor spoiler) the latest patch offered a major plot twist which served as an opening into what we might expect in patch 3.0: Heavensward (yes it's an expansion). 

With Batman

Number two is the Hildibrand arc which we embarked in a gag journey (hey, what a hero without it's sense of humours) with Hildibrand Manderville: self-titled agent of inquiry and Inspector Extraordinaire Gentleman, which actually just a private detective with a penchant for disastrous and hyperbolic solution which (surprise) not always right, combined with numerous luck and colorful allies Hildibrand arc probably the most extraordinary (har har) arc Final Fantasy XIV has ever created simply because it get me laughing every single time =))

I'm so sorry for posting this

 Number three is the moogle courier stories, it puts up us as a mail courier for the good (and again, not-so-good) people of Eorzea, to deliver them letters which lead us to know more about their problems and woes, and --of course as a hero -- helps them, it's a short episodic goodness which the NPCs are described as more than just a quest giver, but also have life of their own.

A very GOOD life

Four is the Crystal Tower arc, where you embarked with a group of researchers known as NOAH to unlock the secret(and raiding) of crystal tower, as I said before the bosses are homage to Final Fantasy III
 

Five is another raid story: the Coil of Bahamut story act where we accompanied by Alisaie Leveilleur, the twin sister of Alphinaud Leveilleur which is a major story character, Allisaie takes us into a research facility which studies the impact of Bahamut's prison from the last era, it served as a hardcore raid instance but since the story is so good (I don't know, I don't raid) there are talks about to make it a soloable arc for casual players, I'm looking forward to this.

Even with such numerous story arc apparently Square knows where to stop and overshadowing people with what might be expected on Heavensward, the stories are not yet over, my eternal question is whether they will be continued or not, WOW has so much unfinished story arc and only a few of them has ever continued, things like Koltira's last stand to Sylvanas and Abyssal Maw has been scrapped and considered finished, no it's not finished, I refused to acknowledge that. Hopefully with much overshadowing here and there Square will actually resumed it

The (lazy) gearing and gameplay

Take a look at my post here, here, here, and here oh also here

As you can see from my numerous posts about 'dem gameplay on FFXIV you might see that I'm not too hot about it, I stopped playing in the beginning of patch 2.3 and as I came back gradually I just realized how I might be wrong, on the verge of patch 2.3 my chosen first class is a monk, a punch drunk dps guy, I have a sphairai which is a relic weapon a.k.a the strongest weapon on patch 2.0, with the help of the -then added chimera and hydra encounter on duty finder on patch 2.1(yes in case you forget it's a LFG tool)I zoomed through the steps of it and with my saved mythology tomes which I farmed from my days as paladin I obtained it in days, not weeks, not months, days, boom.

As square has numerous free weekend I mostly farmed the next upgrade of my weapon, atma (obtained by the old fashioned FATE grinding) on those days, sometimes it's going good, sometimes it's friggin frustrating (RNG sucks) I hit the jackpot on September free weekend.

So there's me and my atma weapon, as I renewed my sub I set myself another goal, another upgrade, the animus, which is another grindfest, yes bloodying my atma weapon with blood from numerous creatures is kind of sadistic way to upgrade a weapon but hey I need 9 books to be completed, each has at least 20 challenges ranged from killing X things and running dungeons (don't die on the last boss or it won't be count, blah), I decided that I will solo this thing, using DF and old-fashioned waiting game for fates, I got into 1/3 on the last books so it'll be awhile but the thing is, it's only takes three weeks to get into this phase and I don't even focus on it with numerous story arc to finish,

Animus is a level 100 weapon, you know another way to obtain 100 weapons on FFXIV on patch 2.5? Here's what I do on my Paladin: Run Crystal Tower --> upgrade gear with tomes --> run Syrcus Tower --> buy level 100 weapon with tomes --> run some more syrcus tower --> upgrade them to lvl 110 with tomes and stuffs found inside.

Yes it's easier, yes it's faster, but it just happened that I skipped patch 2.3 and 2.4 entirely!!! which means every good stuff of them is now available on vendors, so if I leveled another class now, on this patch, take it four weeks if you're a slow leveler (which can't be, because duty roulette bonus which will zoom you) add days for relic, run CT, buy weapons and armors, run ST, upgrades, voila, boom you're now decked in ilvl 110 in matter of weeks (probably one) if you skipped the entire leveling process entirely, on this ilvl you can access almost every single content on FFXIV, the first and second coil bahamut, the extreme primals, the odin, the hard and expert dungeons, The Hunt, world of darkness, latest PVP, anything, you see where this going? Yes FFXIV has become more approachable tiered-progress-based MMORPGs and that's VERY VERY GOOD

But what can I do on those content? I'm not fast enough to dodge things, or breaking things with heavy rotation, well just the point I want to make, Square tone down almost EVERYTHING in the latest patch, well not everything, hard still means hard and old dungeon can be irritating (yes I'm looking at you Aurum Vale) but the effort you pulled plus the gear you're wearing helped, the hardmode of Amdapor, Halatali and expert Wanderer's palace has a difficulty setting somewhere between sleeping in dungeon and breaking a keyboard, patch 2.0 Ultima battle was over the top and exceed all my expectation about how fun and engaging a dungeon battle is just because a) it's not too hard and b) it has a good song, the two latest trial and dungeon: The Chrysalis and Lake Keeper tops it, the balance was perfect, the boss battles are fun, last boss battle are somewhere between intimidating and brutally satisfying, there's no perfect way to win this, the one hit kill skillz was so few but if you don't entertain your footwork, you can still wipe, for a melee dps it's fun, for tanks and probably healer it's fun, yeah, that's only it, it's fun :D

Here's another SS to reward you, and no I don't even know what that is

Onward to 3.0

Well, I've written so much, so here's something, by scrapping everything that was on patch 1.0 FFXIV finally got a second chance and they used it well to gain acknowledgement from a solo (casually zerging in raid) player like me, by simplifying means and upping the rewards for activities FFXIV can continue to grow, but here's the thing, as you can see it's only the main game I'm talking about, come the expansion how approachable the state will be? Will the leveling process simplified? Up until now the main story arc requires you to get into dungeons and beat it but to be honest it's extremely worth it since the story is well written and enjoyable, For the story I think new player wants the whole experience too (Blizz cut the Undercity Siege story arc on Cataclysm, /rude), but LFG tool will probably without old players running around it (even if it's synced), so the fact that new players must open it all just to unlock high level dungeon can be.... discouraging, especially for new hardcores which tend to grind everything just to get into max level, and since max level dungeon in FFXIV tied to quests and main story quests and not the level, this can be a problem, at least for the powerleveler

Well there are solution, Blizz now sold instant level 90 on their website, it's also bundled with Warlords of Draenor expansion, but it's because they have 5 expansion pack and cataclysm rendered the old lore continuity useless for the sake of new graphics and eye candy, FFXIV still has a way to go, it's only the second expansion and since the main game bundled with patch 2.0 so it can be counted for a first expansion, it will be interesting if Square will go the same road as Blizzard (a.k.a make everything on the previous expansion obsolete, excluding Pandaria, they still have more content than all WOW combined)

But for now, I'll enjoy a little crystal action